Subterranean Homesick Alien
by GirHugs
Summary: 2838 Hours After Jemma: He hadn't been close enough to make it before the portal closed, the shimmer disappearing when he was thirty meters away, but even though he hadn't been able to get through the portal, they had sent something across to him.


**Author's Note:** Title taken from Radiohead's "Subterranean Homesick Alien"

 **Warning:** Brief allusion to suicidal thoughts.

* * *

 **Subterranean Homesick Alien**

 **1 Hour After Jemma**

Jemma had come and gone, like the bright flash of a shooting star, blinding in her brilliance. After years of just surviving, she had reminded him what it was like to actually live. But she's gone now, rescued, and as relieving as that knowledge is, Will cannot wrap his head around the notion of being alone in this hell once more. He did it before, for fourteen years, but fuck, he really isn't sure if he can do it again.

Looking down at the now useless gun in his hand, Will heaves a sigh and wishes he had just one more bullet…

No, Will shakes his head and drops the gun to the ground. Now that Jemma is gone, he's going to have to be responsible for more than just the doom and gloom. He's got to hold onto at least a little bit of that Jemma-hope. He owes her that much.

 **195 Hours After Jemma**

Will treks up to the highest vantage point across the landscape and settles down for a long day of watching. His eyes restlessly scan the horizon, searching - hoping - for another red flare to light up the sky and signal a rescue.

 **208 Hours After Jemma**

Blinking tired eyes, Will tilts his head side to side and rubs the back of his neck to alleviate some of the muscle strain. His stomach growls, alerting him to the late hour, and Will decides that he better get back to the cave. With a heavy sigh, Will gets to his feet and slings his pack up over his shoulder. The trek back down is long and tiring.

 **512 Hours After Jemma**

Will shifts on the cot, turns onto his stomach and buries his face into the other pillow. If he tries hard enough, he can almost convince himself that it still smells like Jemma.

 **607 Hours After Jemma**

Will stirs the pot methodically, thoughts straying aimlessly. Lifting the spoon up, he blows the steam to cool it down before tasting the broth. The fungi flavor is pungent and strong.

Mushroom soup had never been his favorite dinner, but Jemma had been thrilled the first time he made it for her, asking an endless stream of questions: where do the fungi grow, are there different types, which ones are safe to eat, how did he figure out which ones are safe for consumption? That night, the soup had tasted better than any other time he had made it…but Will figured that had more to do with the company kept than with any change in the simple recipe of boil water, add mushrooms.

He remembers her laughing as she told him a story about the time she'd brought pizza into the lab and Fitz had stolen a piece off her plate during a fit of engineering frenzy, ignoring her warning and then subsequently gagging and whining when he realized the pizza had 'horrid edible rubber' and pepperoni on top.

Will had told her that he'd had similar views on mushrooms as Fitz, but after years on this planet, he'd learned to suck it up and get over the gag-inducing texture just so he could introduce some variety into his lackluster rotation of meals.

 **893 Hours After Jemma**

Failing again, Will sweeps the cards into a pile before stacking them up and dealing out a new game of solitaire. It is not nearly as much fun as playing poker with Jemma had been.

They used to make simple bets with each other, like who would do the laundry that week, or who would hike out five miles to the waste disposal site to make sure the "bathroom" didn't have such a horrible stench, or who would take a dip in the pond to rustle up some seafood for dinner.

It wasn't until Will had somehow managed to earn himself two weeks of chore duties that he caught on and realized Jemma could count cards.

 **1251 Hours After Jemma**

His foraging expedition leads him close to the graveyard in the No Fly Zone. A soft clink sounds as the toe of his boot bumps into something other than sand and rock. Kneeling down, Will finds a small vial buried in the sand. He rubs a thumb over the quark and then pushes it up and out to unstopper the vial.

He plugs the top with the pad of his thumb and tips the vial upside down and then right side up. His thumb comes away with a viscous oil on it that Will rubs between his fingers. A soft, floral scent wafts up to his nose and Will feels his lips quirk up in a wry smile.

The climate was constant and cool, so sweat isn't such a huge issue, and the pool did offer clean-ish water to wash off the worst of the filth, but there was still a drastic difference between not-horrible smelling and smelling good.

Jemma used to wax poetic about her bath salts and scented candles, reminiscing about the times she would spend days in the lab with Fitz working on a project and not even realizing how long they'd spent there until one of their teachers or peers or supervisors or teammates would waltz in complaining about the smell of metal, chemicals, and sweat. After which she would lock herself away in the bathroom and spend an hour soaking in the tub until she'd washed away the grime and reemerged smelling of fresh rain and soft lilac. She'd tried other scents, like vanilla and coconut lime, but she could tell that Fitz didn't like those strong, tickle-the-nose fragrances so she stuck to the softer ones.

Will slips the vial into his jacket pocket for safe-keeping; Jemma would have loved this find. Idly, Will wonders whether the scented oil would have earned Fitz's stamp of approval as well.

 **1664 Hours After Jemma**

Back in the cave, Will blankly stares at the deep gash in his hand, a slow, steady flow of blood dripping into the parched sand at his feet. His eyes dart to the ladder and he wonders how long it would take the Evil to come for him.

 **1665 Hours After Jemma**

Will curls up on the cot, cleaned and bandaged hand resting on the thin, lumpy mattress beside him. The abandoned computer station sits in his line of sight and he gladly welcomes the tide of memories that wash over him. Within minutes, the faint echoing memory of Jemma's bright laughter lulls Will to sleep.

 **2025 Hours After Jemma**

Out of the corner of his eye, Will sees a momentary shimmer. He turns quickly, almost slipping on loose gravel in his haste. Will stumbles forward and drops to his knees where it was, hands sweeping across the ground in frantic arcs, his breath stuttering in his chest as his throat clogs up with frustrated tears. Sharp rocks cut into his hands and his fingernails chip as he claws and scratches at the hard, solid ground.

"Please," Will chokes out, voice hoarse and unused. " _Please_."

He's not sure how long he kneels there, digging away at the ground, but eventually the panicked desperation subsides enough for him to realize the futility of his actions. Even if there had been a portal there, it's gone now.

 **2069 Hours After Jemma**

Will endlessly scans the landscape, trying to catch sight of another portal. He knows it's a long shot; this planet is huge. And while Jemma had discovered that the portal does, in fact, open on a predictable schedule in predictable locations, Will has no way of knowing what said schedule or locations are.

So there he sits, high up on the mountaintop, watching. Waiting.

 **2572 Hours After Jemma**

He hasn't caught even a glimpse of another portal opening since that one time countless days ago.

Maybe it had never been there. Maybe Will's mind had been playing a trick on him. Maybe he's finally gone mad.

 **2753 Hours After Jemma**

A bright red flare lights up the sky, arcing high over the barren landscape before crashing back down to the ground in an inelegant swoop.

Miles away, safe underground, Will hums Drops of Jupiter as he prepares that night's dinner.

 **2789 Hours After Jemma**

The washed-out, blue-grey landscape suddenly flares with a burst of fiery red and Will takes off running before his mind even fully registers what he's seeing. Fatigued legs carry him up a sharp incline and Will has to use his hands for balance as he tries to climb the steep crest blocking his view of salvation.

Each breath burns through his lungs and his heart crashes against his chest as he finally crests the ridge and scans the horizon. His eyes quickly find the burning flare and just like that, Will's joy and elation fizzles out to conflicted wariness.

The flare sits two or so miles into the No Fly Zone. It's further out than Will has ever hazarded before. A list of pros and cons immediately flash through his mind as he stands there. The flare marks the portal, freedom, but that freedom sits firmly within bounds of the Evil's domain. Will hasn't managed to survive this long by taking foolish risks.

He wants to escape this hell, fuck does he ever, but he can't be sure how long the portal will even stay open. It would take him a minimum of ten minutes to make it to the marked spot, but if the portal isn't still open by the time he gets there, then he will be tired and winded and stranded in one of the most dangerous areas on this god-forsaken planet. So, setting aside his desperation to get the fuck off this planet…it's not a risk he should take.

Will sits down heavily, his legs giving way as he makes his decision. He can't make it to this portal, but that flare…that flare gives him hope. Jemma is out there, back on earth, and she's trying to save him again.

 **2838 Hours After Jemma**

He's seen four flares in total now. The first three had been too far into the No Fly Zone for him to risk trying to reach them, but this last one is only 200 meters across the line. He hadn't been close enough to make it before the portal closed, the shimmer disappearing when he was thirty meters away, but even though he hadn't been able to get through the portal, they had sent something across to him.

Once he's back in the safety of the cave, Will opens the backpack that had been sitting there waiting for him. Will lets out a sharp bark of laughter, his eyes blurring with tears as he pulls out an iPod with a note attached.

 _Fitz gave me a look of horror when I asked him to procure two dozen original iPods, said that it was bad enough I wanted Apple products instead of Stark Tech, but to go all the way back to the 2001 iPod…well, I'll just give you fair warning now that once we get you through, Fitz is going to be giving you a crash course in technology, so prepare thyself._

Will pulls out numerous other items - headphones for the iPod, a bag of Skittles, a copy of _A Storm of Swords_ , toothbrush and toothpaste, body wash, protein bars, a flask with Irish Whiskey, a first aid kit - some of which have additional notes attached.

 _You told me you had read the first two, so I figured you would like the third book. They made a tv show based on the series, it's already saved to the common room entertainment center, so we'll have a fun night of pizza and binge watching the first few seasons._

 _Fitz says you have poor taste in spirits._

 _Wash up, Flyboy._

 _Don't eat the entire bag in one sitting. Your body won't be able to handle too much processed food or sugar so take it slow. Savor the rainbow._

 **2840 Hours After Jemma**

Will is spread out on the cot, headphones on, iPod on shuffle, Radiohead floating on the periphery of his consciousness as he starts chapter two of _A Storm of Swords_. Just as he goes to flip the page, "Subterranean Homesick Alien" comes to an end and a voice recording cues up instead of a new song.

"…Will, hello…" the voice starts, awkward and halting. Will immediately sets the book down and presses his hands over the headphones, holding them tight over his ears so that he doesn't miss a word. "My name is Fitz. Jemma probably mentioned me." Will snorts a laugh, because yeah, she most definitely had mentioned Fitz. A lot. Fitz is her favorite word.

"If you're listening to this, then that's…good, great. You're alive. Jemma will be so happy…" Fitz trails off, his voice soft, tinged with something that isn't quite bitterness, but maybe edging into somber resignation. Will swallows thickly, unsure about what to read into the emotions bleeding through, unsure about how he's supposed to feel in return.

"Jemma's told me a lot about you. The monolith…it was destroyed during her rescue. Shattered into thousands of pieces. All of us just figured, good riddance, you know?" Will nods along, because he sort of agrees. Will figured he'd die on this planet, made peace with it a long time ago. So while it is depressing to think that he might have been stuck on the wrong side of the portal, he can't deny that it's a comfort to think that at least no one else would be stranded here in hell either.

"But Jemma, she said she wanted to go back. Said she _needed_ to go back. And when I asked her why, because that statement was going to need one hell of an explanation, she told me about you. You saved her…thank you." Will quirks his lips up in a wry smile, because Fitz is very much mistaken about that. She was the one that saved him.

Fitz is quiet for a long while. Will has to look down at the iPod screen to check if the recording is done, but it's still got another minute so Will just waits for Fitz to continue.

Just as the recording is ticking away its final seconds, Fitz's voice drifts through the headphones, strong and resolute. "We're going to get you back home, Will."

 **2987 Hours After Jemma**

Will has seen five more flares and retrieved five more packs. The items stay pretty much the same, sometimes there will be MnM's instead of Skittles, or _The Hobbit_ instead of _A Storm of Swords_ , but Will really only cares about the iPod at this point. Because every one has a new message from Fitz.

The recordings vary in mood and duration, but Will covets them all. He latches onto the words that reveal glimpses of Fitz's character and tidbits of information about how Jemma is handling things. Her handwritten notes are all warm and upbeat, optimism bleeding through, but Fitz's updates are much more brutally honest.

"I ordered a half mushroom, half pepperoni pizza for our lunch in the lab today. Jemma burst into tears.

"Jemma says the mattress in her room is too soft."

"Jemma refuses to leave the base. She won't even go up to the above ground levels unless she is sure it is night or all the windows are closed. When I asked her why, she said she didn't want to see the sun yet. Not until you were there to see it with her."

 **3008 Hours After Jemma**

"Jemma and Coulson got into a huge fight today. Jemma wants to send a rescue-team through the portal. Coulson says it's too dangerous; the portal is too unstable and unpredictable. Jemma said that it could be more stable if Daisy helped, but she's away on a mission and Coulson won't pull her back or give Jemma an estimated time table for when the mission is complete. We've been working on creating a wave frequency controller that will mimic Daisy's power, but Jemma is getting frustrated, desperate. I'm worried."

 **3032 Hours After Jemma**

"You know, when Jemma first told me about you, when she first asked me to help her, I almost, almost considered erasing every bit of information I'd gathered on the monolith. Because it just…it didn't seem fair." Fitz sharply exhales an angry breath and Will can so easily imagine him pulling at his hair in frustration.

"The very same night she disappeared, that night, we were supposed to go on a date. I'd wanted to date Jemma for a while and Jemma…she knew that. She knows that. And…I don't know if her feelings had possibly changed, or if maybe she had just agreed for my sake…but she had. Agreed. I asked her on a date and she said yes."

"But then she was gone and we never got that date. And while she was gone, she fell for you. She is in love with you, Will. And I don't…she didn't…she doesn't owe me anything. She agreed to that one date, but I never expected more and she never promised me more than that one date, that one night. So she doesn't feel guilty about her feelings for you, and she shouldn't, I don't want her to, but I just…" Fitz is laying himself bare here, opening himself up and exposing all his tender vulnerabilities. It both terrifies and humbles Will.

"I'm not going to lie, Will. It hurts. It hurts and it sucks. And it'll probably take me a while to fall out of love with Jemma, but I will never stop loving Jemma. I have been in love with Jemma for years, but I have loved Jemma even longer than that. So, yeah, it hurts, knowing she is not in love with me and won't be in love with me, but that does not in any way diminish the bond we have with one another. She is the most important person in my life. I will always love Jemma."

Fitz isn't saying this to insight jealousy or provoke anger. It isn't a warning to Will; Fitz is not challenging him for Jemma's love, because irregardless of Jemma's feelings towards Will, she loves Fitz, will always love Fitz.

 **3056 Hours After Jemma**

"We finished the device. Jemma wants to send a team through, now, but Coulson still won't take the risk without at least a dozen test-runs showing that we can actually control when, if not where, the portal will open. He says that, given your military background, you should be able to make it through on your own now that we've given you a fighting chance."

Will feels his heart beating wildly in his chest. Jemma's boss is right, he can do this. His failure to make it through the portal has always just been an issue of not enough time.

"We need you to come back home, Will. I…I need Jemma to be okay. But in order for Jemma to be okay, she needs you, Will. So please, please come back home."

 **3074 Hours After Jemma**

He was so close, so close. The red flare had gone up, five miles away, but Will had immediately started running. He never would have before. Five miles was too far for him to even have a shot at making it before the portal closed, but with what Fitz told him, he'd tried.

He'd been within five meters when the portal winked out of existence. After kicking a few rocks in frustration, Will picks up the pack and goes back to the cave.

 **3076 Hours After Jemma**

"I saw Jemma packing a backpack last night. I want the device to work…but I'm worried about what Jemma will do if it does."

 **3077 Hours After Jemma**

Will is back outside. The portal used to only open once a day, but Fitz makes it sound like the device will let them not only keep the portal open longer, but open the portal at will. So, given the worried tinge to Fitz's voice and his knowledge of Jemma's stubbornness, Will figures that they might try opening the portal again, soon.

And he has to make it through this time. He has to. Because even though the device seems to work, the very notion of Jemma being back in this hell for even a minute, even if it is to rescue him, it makes Will sick with panicked concern. He will not have Jemma back on this planet.

She saved him once before; he won't make her do it again. This time, Will has to save himself.

 **3081 Hours After Jemma**

There's a flare, shooting out of the ground, not even twenty meters away. A surge of adrenaline rushes through Will and burns off all traces of exhaustion. Will practically hurls himself down the hill, stumbling for balance as the ground levels off and then he's sprinting off once more.

He's going to make it. Holy fuck, he's going to make it.

Will doesn't slow down, does not hesitate for even a moment, just hurls himself through the portal with a hysterical, elated, disbelieving yell. There's a weird tingling sensation, like thousands of pins and needles prickling his skin. It's shocking, and a little painful, but so welcome because it means he's finally going home. He's suspended for a moment, timeless and weightless, before gravity kicks back in and his feet hit solid ground. Solid _Earth_.

His momentum carries him forward, sending him hurtling into someone and they crash with teeth-snapping force. They're sent sprawling across the floor, yelps of shock and grunts of pain emitting from the tangled mess of limbs. When their frenzied tumble finally stops, Will blinks his eyes open slowly and peers down at the person he basically just tackled.

Bright blue eyes wide with shock stare up at him and Will flashes his teeth in a friendly grin.

"Hey," Will's voice is light and breathless from his mad dash. "You're Fitz."

Pushing himself up off the smaller man, Will gets to his feet and then offers Fitz a hand up. Fitz just stares up at him for a few seconds, like he can't quite believe what's happening. Will can relate. After Fitz finally seems to catch his bearings, he takes hold of Will's hand and lets Will pull him to his feet.

Will scans their surroundings, takes note of the darkened hallways and lab rooms, the lack of any additional people. There's an oversized pack sitting next to the monolith and Fitz's clothes are more suited for a hiking trip than a lab or bed, which is probably where everyone else is.

Will raises a questioning eyebrow, even though he knows perfectly well what Fitz had been planning. Fitz shifts, wrapping his arms around himself, awkward and unsure as he meets Will's gaze.

"Uh," Fitz stares at Will for a moment, before shaking his head and forcing his lips up in a smile that is strained but sincere. "Welcome home."

Will blinks slowly, lets the words really sink in, realizes the enormity of what just happened. "Thanks," Will lets out an unsteady breath, his smile small and a little shaken, but heartfelt and true. "It's good to be home."


End file.
